When recruiting employees organisations should consider how to ensure that new recruits are given the time and support to excel within their job. Mentoring can provide a great opportunity to develop young staff, but it can also provide experienced staff with a great opportunity for personal development. Having experienced employees share their knowledge and experience with new staff can help to retain the skills that exist within the organisation.
The Millennium Group cite that 77% of companies report mentoring programs were effective in increasing retention and lists many other benefits.
Key Considerations:
Having a well organised mentoring programme is key, many organisations underestimate the time and commitment required to run effective programmes. Setting the time aside for mentoring is a priority to ensure the mentor, mentee and organisation can reap the rewards.
Set clear objectives for running a mentoring programme right at the onset, this way when you recruit mentors the responsibilities, time commitments and skills required are clear and you can use these to ensure you get the right staff members involved.
Consider how the mentoring will take place, online platforms exist but face-to-face mentoring can be just as effective if not more so. How often will the mentor and mentee meet online or face-to-face, how will the communicate outside of these times?
Think carefully about matching a young employee with a mentor, to be effective the relationship between mentor and mentee must work. Understand what both the mentor and mentee want to get out of the programme in addition to the objectives set out by the organisation. Will the role of the mentor be to coach, to challenge, to build networks, to support?
It is important that a relationship of trust is created early in the process, so work with the mentor and mentee to establish the ground rules, what to do if there is any conflict and what aspects of the process will be reported back to the company and what is kept confidential.
Help the mentor and mentee set some goals for the programme, set SMART (Specific, Measurable, Agreed, Realistic and Time based) goals. Check in with the mentoring process at agreed intervals to understand if the goals set are being achieved and if the process is working for both participants.
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Youth Employment UK Membership is a strategic step for organisations of all sizes who want support and recognition for their commitment to creating quality early career opportunities in line with Good Youth Employment Standards.
As experts on youth employment and co-founders of the Youth Employment Group, we are ideally placed to understand the complex landscape facing young people, employers and policy makers.